Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Resources

The Committee considered a report of the Executive Director of Resources, which provided an overview of the number of requests for information received under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA).

Under the FOIA, the Council is required to respond to requests for information it holds from members of the public subject to any exemptions that may apply.  Section 39 of the FOIA required the Council to process requests for environmental information under the EIR.  The EIR process, whilst similar to FOIA, promotes ‘proactive dissemination’ of information and provides fewer grounds for the Council to withhold information.  Both FOIA and EIR permit personal data, as defined by the DPA, to be withheld where the applicant is not the subject of the data.  The DPA requires the authority to process personal data in accordance with the principles of the Act, which includes providing access to information the Council processes about them, subject to any exemptions.

The report indicated that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) oversees compliance with FOIA, EIR and DPA, promotes good practice and deals with complaints from members of the public who were not satisfied with the response they receive.

Increasingly the Council, through its Information Management Strategy work, is seeking to make as much of its data open to the public to reduce the need for the FOIA to be utilised. This is important as the Council significantly reduces the resources it has available and seeks new solutions to the City’s needs which can arise from sharing data appropriately.

The Council is obliged to respond to information requests under FOIA/EIR within 20 working days, subject to any relevant exemptions.  The Code of Practice, issued by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs under S45 of FOIA, requires public authorities to have a procedure in place to deal with complaints in regard to how their requests were handled. This process is handled by the Information Governance Team as an FOI/EIR review.  After a review has been completed an applicant has a right to complain to the ICO for an independent ruling on the outcome of the review.  Based on the findings of their investigations, the ICO may issue a Decision Notice.  The ICO also monitors public authorities who do not respond to at least 85% of FOI/EIR requests they receive within 20 working days.

The Council had continued to manage FOI requests within the SharePoint system, since May 2015.  During 2015/16, 1,328 FOI/EIR requests were received by the Council, an increase from the 1307 received during the previous year.  The Council responded to 60% of FOIA/EIR requests within 20 working days in 2015/16 compared to 79% for the previous year.  The Committee noted that the Council did not record the reasons why requests exceeded the statutory timescales and were advised that this could be due to delays in locating information held and / or internal deliberations around the application of any valid exemptions.

The Council received 18 requests for FOIA / EIR internal reviews.  10 were not upheld and the exemptions applied were maintained and no further information provided; 4 were partially upheld with further information provided; and 4 upheld with information provided.  Three complaints were referred to the ICO. The reasons for these were set out in the report.

The DPA provides individuals with the right to ask for information that the Council holds about them.  These are also known as Subject Access Requests (SARs).  The Council should be satisfied about the individual’s identity, have sufficient information about the request and receive the statutory £10 fee before it can respond.  SARs have to be completed within 40 calendar days.  The Council received 268 DPA requests during the course of 2015/16, of which 93 were valid requests.  Of these 49 (53%) were completed within 40 calendar days.  Whilst the Council does not record the reasons why requests exceeded the statutory timescale, the majority of the requests that exceeded the statutory timescale of 40 calendar days were social care requests.  The reason for this (though not recorded) was considered to be mainly due to the complexity and volume of information held coupled with the staffing issues, which were referred to in the report. 

The Council received two requests for internal reviews for SARs in the course of the year.  Both were partially upheld and additional information was disclosed.  In addition, there were two complaints referred to the ICO regarding SARs during 2015/16.

The report also indicated that in July 2015, an Independent Commission was set out to report on the effectiveness of the FOIA ten years since it came into force. The Commission consulted a wide range of public bodies on the operation of FOIA.  A joint response was submitted on behalf of all West Midlands Authorities which recognised the importance of transparency but highlighted the increasing challenges of dealing with requests for information in the current climate.

The Commission concluded that FOIA is generally working well but that they would like to see a reduction in delays in responding to requests. They made a series of recommendations which include changes to how extensions of time are dealt with, imposition of statutory time limits for dealing with internal reviews and the publication of performance statistics. The Commission were not persuaded that there were any convincing arguments to impose fees for some / all requests for information.

In considering the report, the Committee sought information on how many of the FOIA requests were submitted from journalists and requested that this information be provided.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Procurement Committee:

1.  Note the Council’s performance for responding to accesses to information requests, the number and outcome of internal reviews and the outcomes of complaints made to the Information Commissioners Office.

2.  Request that information on the number of Freedom of Information Act 2000 applications submitted by journalists be forwarded to them.